Why we chose not to have kids

We've been happily together for 17 years and here's why we chose not to have kids.

We both pictured our lives with kids and had lots of conversations about having them all throughout our relationship.

But we got married pretty young and so we told ourselves that we would enjoy being married for a few years before we started to think about having kids.

So we were waiting to feel ready, but that time just never came. We never felt like we actually wanted to have kids.

We started having new conversations about what it might look like to not have kids. At first, it felt really scary and painful because we had always pictured our lives with kids. We worried about what our lives would look like without kids and if we would regret not having them.

Ultimately, what we kept coming back to was this question. Do we actively want to have kids? We thought about our potential future children and we felt like we would want to be able to tell our kid we wanted to have you so badly. Not we decided to have you because we were worried there was a small chance we would regret it if we didn't. We kept asking each other, do you actively want to have a child? And the answer for both of us kept being no.

For almost 15 years, we left the door open to change our minds. But finally we closed it earlier this year when I got a vasectomy.

We get a lot of judgment and hate for being child free. People call us selfish or accuse us of hating kids, neither of which are true. But we know it's the right decision for us. We hope that sharing our story gives you the courage and confidence to make the decision that feels right for you.